BONUS WILDCARD WEEK (September 22 – 28) Go order something from the SWV website and watch it!

This is the definition of scuzz: Barry Mahon did not put his name on this movie.

Tony works in a mannequin factory and can’t connect with anyone, despite people trying to include him. Instead, he spies on sunbathing women with binoculars until he’s finally motivated enough to murder them, which the stuttery black and white camera of Mahon documents without any viscera, just an oddball not from this dimension detachment.

Of course, once he takes home the heads of one of the mannequins that he’s made, Tony feels a bit better about life. I mean, he’s still a killer and a necrophile. But isn’t it nice that he finally has someone who can understand him?

Made a year before other NYC-based scumtastic murder films like Anton Holden’s Aroused, eight years before Shaun Costello’s Forced Entry and more than a decade ahead of William Lustig’s Maniac — which also has plenty of mannequin-related mania — this movie has no aspirations of being art, yet succeeds in spite of itself. While Mahon can barely focus his camera at times, he somehow made something captivatingly creepy.

The weirdest thing is there’s barely any upsetting violence and no graphic sexual content, but the whole thing feels like the grossest, greasiest, sweatiest nightmare movie. And that, my friends, is the magic of Barry Mahon. You write him off and then he smacks you right in the face with something memorable.

BONUS WILDCARD WEEK (September 22 – 28) Go order something from the SWV website and watch it!

How many Barry Mahon movies can you watch in one week? How about twenty-five or so?

Judy Adler (Satan’s Bed) plays Judith, a new girl in town who goes from the camera clubs and cheesecake photos to the big time of adult films and loses her innocence along the way. She’s probably one of the best actresses I’ve seen in one of Mahon’s films — not the highest of bars, but credit where credit is due — and her story is actually pretty gripping.

This being Barry Mahon, much of this film’s 63 minutes is given over to another kind of gripping, but you expected that. Actually, the majority of this movie is pretty PG-13.

You can also look for Dawn Bennett (The Singles), Anna Karol (Censored), Byron Mabe (he directed The Acid Eaters), June Roberts (Death of a Nymphette) and Marlene Starr (Bad Girls Go to Hell).

The self-loathing — maybe I’m projecting — of Mahon is on full display here, as the world of adult entertainment is presented as not always the brightest or sweetest place in the world. Well, you know what they say. No one tunes in to a movie that is all about being nice.

69 EsSINtial SWV Titles (September 15 – 21): Klon, who came up with this list, said “This isn’t the 69 BEST SWV movies, it isn’t my 69 FAVORITE SWV movies, my goal was to highlight 69 of the MOST SWV movies.” You can see the whole list here, including some of the ones I’ve already posted.

A couple of months ago, I was doing my usual weekend of looking at used DVD stores when I noticed an older man staring at the stacks of used movies. He stopped and asked, “Do you mind if I ask you what movies I should get?” It turns out that his wife had recently died and he missed watching horror movies with her and wanted to bring back some memories. He had no idea how streaming worked and had just gotten a DVD player, so as we continued talking, it turned out that he really liked Barbara Steele in movies and was surprised that he could own this film. It made me feel really great that I could help someone out like this as well as realize that Ms. Steele has been bewitching men of all ages all around the world for decades.

Mario Caiano has made movies across nearly every genre that an Italian director can work in, from peplum like Ulysses Against the Son of Hercules to westerns such as A Coffin for the Sheriff, giallo like Eye in the Labyrinth and berserk freakouts like Love Camp 7, The Fighting Fists of Shanghai Joe and the kinda giallo Ombre Roventi.

This is the kind of gothic madness that I love so much, starting with Stephen Arrowsmith (Paul Muller, Malenka) discovering his wife Muriel (Steele) having the gardener plant some seeds inside her. He shoves a hot poker in the man’s face, burns her with acid and then electrocutes both of them before removing their hearts and giving their blood to de-age his servant Solange (Helga Liné!). And then he finds out that he isn’t the heir to the castle — it turns out that Muriel has an identical sister named Jenny (also Steele) who is mentally deranged but will become his new bride.

I’m in. All in.

Stephen and Solange begin to gaslight Jenny but she has the ghosts of the dead lovers on her side, as well as Dr. Derek Joyce (Marino Masé, The Red Queen Kills Seven Times). This movie looks beyond beautiful and really allows Steele to showcase her acting skills (and her piercing eyes).

“If you’re gonna scream, scream with me,” sang Glenn Danzig in the Misfits’ “Hybrid Moments,” which was inspired by this movie. Nightmare Castle is everything great about black and white gothic melodrama and I just want to live within every frame of this film. It’s also the first horror score that Ennio Morricone would write.

You have so many choices to see this. For the easy way, just stream it on Tubi. Or you can do what I did and buy the Severin blu ray, which has commentary by Steele, an interview with Caiano and Castle of Blood and Terror Creatures from the Grave included.

69 EsSINtial SWV Titles (September 15 – 21): Klon, who came up with this list, said “This isn’t the 69 BEST SWV movies, it isn’t my 69 FAVORITE SWV movies, my goal was to highlight 69 of the MOST SWV movies.” You can see the whole list here, including some of the ones I’ve already posted.

Vapors was Andy Milligan’s first official film. It was first released as an underground gay film in selected art houses in 1965 and to the general public in 1967. Today, it could really play anywhere, not in adults only theaters.

Directed by Milligan and written by Hope Stansbury, all of the interior shots were filmed in a vacant apartment floor on 199 Prince Street in Manhattan, the same apartment building where Milligan lived. The clerk scene was shot in a candy store and the opening exterior shot of the bathhouse was filmed outside the actual St. Marks Bathhouse on 6 St. Marks Place in the East Village, a location famous at the time for hookups when gay sex was illegal in New York City. Keep in mind this was just over fifty years ago.

The entire movie takes place inside the St. Marks Baths, as a young man named Thomas sits on a bed and observes the other men and their personalities. He’s joined by an older man named Mr. Jaffe  They get pasty their opening lies — Thomas is not a frequent visitor, Jaffe is not a first-timer — and begin to discuss their lives. Jaffe has been married for 19 years and wants nothing to do with his wife any longer. Sixteen years ago, their son drowned and life has never been the same. He sees something of his son in Thomas and has to leave, but promises to send him a gift. The loudness of the baths continues as a paper sunflower arrives for Thomas, who cries upon Mr. Thomas leaving, but is soon greeted by another man who disrobes for anonymous sex with the young man.

This movie feels like a place that I am invading and not just because I am a heterosexual. It’s because Milligan has so completely created a privacy between these two men that only they should share and we’re just as bad as that peeping tom looking through a hole in the wall. It’s fascinating to see this movie, one free from murder and the supernatural, and see where Milligan’s movies went after this.

You can watch this on YouTube.

Frank Henenlotter’s Sexy Shockers (September 1 – 7) We all know Frank Hennenlotter as the director of the Basket Case films, Bad Biology, Brain Damage, and Frankenhooker, but he’s also a cinematic curator of the crass! An academic of the pathetic! A steward of sleaze! A sexton of the sexual and the Sexy Shocker series is his curio cabinet of crudity. Skin and sin are mixed together in these homegrown oddities, South American rediscoveries, and Eurohorror almost-classics. Your mind may recoil with erotic revulsion at the sights contained within these films, so choose wisely!

Everything was going so well at the nudist camp. People were playing volleyball and shuffleboard and running and doing all manner of things that happen in a nudie-cutie movie and then, well, a dark stranger intrudes and starts killing women. And that’s when the typical Barry Mahon gets weird.

This is the kind of movie where the evil ape that is the titular The Beast That Killed Women gets shot with ten minutes left and we’re supposed to hang around and wait for the credits.

Barry always rounds up a better-looking cast than many of his contemporaries and this time he has Judy Adler (who starred in another good Mahon movie, Confessions of a Bad Girl), Janet Banzet (who shows up in the Sylvester Stallone softcore movie The Party at Kitty and Stud’s), Darlene Bennett (Nudes On Tiger Reef), Dolores Carlos (Diary of a Nudist), Gigi Darlene (The Love Statue), Louise Downe (who would write She-Devils On Wheels), Marlene Eck (Crazy Wild and Crazy), Christy Foushee (Blood Feast), Marlene Starr (Bad Girls Go to Hell), Sandra Sinclair (Blaze Starr Goes Nudist), June Roberts (All Men Are Apes!) and Joni Roberts (The Girl with the Magic Box).

The ironic thing is one of the women who stayed clothed in this movie, Juliet Anderson, went on to become one of the most iconic adult stars of all time, Aunt Peg. She didn’t start acting in those films until she was 39. She also discovered Nina Hartley, another seemingly ageless actress.

As for the beast that is killing women, if you guessed that Barry is in that suit, you’ve seen as many of his movies as I have.

Johnny Legend’s Untamed Video (August 25 – 31) Welcome to the wonderfully wacky world of Johnny Legend’s Untamed Video! Take a walk on the wild side with troublesome teenagers, sleazy sex kittens, way-out hippies, country bumpkins, big bad bikers, Mexican wrestlers, and every other variety of social deviant you can think of.

Directed by Eber Lobato and Howard Veit and shot by Ray Dennis Steckler, this is all about the murder of Marla (Nelida Lobato), whose life is reviewed Rashomon-style by several detectives, then it goes into flashbacks to show you the truth.

Marla got hit by a car, which seems like a bad way to punch out, except that she was playing two men against each other, her rich husband Paul (William Turner) and beach stud David (Nick Novarro). While she claims to be a nymphomaniac, she still got killed for whatever happened next.

As the lawyers argue the truth — one even calls her Miss Sudsy Whudsy or Slutzy Whutzy — we find out the real curveball, especially for 1965. Spoiler here, so you can’t say I didn’t warn you. David is in love with a man,  Christian (this film’s writer, Alan J. Smith) and is so confused over his identity that he’s become a killer. And if you like From Here to Eternity, good news. You’ll get to see that rolling on the beach scene several times.

Nélida made a few films before her too young death in 1982 from breast cancer. She started acting in Argentina and danced at the Champs Elysees and the Lido de Paris, as well as appearing in several films and plays in her native land. She came here to dance in Vegas.

Supposedly, Jim Morrison saw the title of this film on a marquee in Times Square and incorporated it into the song “When the Music’s Over:”

Before I sink
Into the big sleep
I want to hear
I want to hear
The scream of the butterfly

Golden Oldies Week (July 27 – August 3) Something Weird Video have released such a wide range of movies over the last 30 years that trying to categorize them can be tricky. They started out as a gray market mail order distributor (aka a bootlegger) not unlike the Cape Copy Center or Sinister Cinema and eventually moved into the niche se ploit titles that would set them apart. The movies on this list are the kind of cult genre titles that were the bread and butter of many of the bootleg companies of the 90s and most were not exclusive to SWV. If you look in the catalogs or on the website these would be under categories like “Nightmare Theatre’s Late Night Chill-O-Rama Horror Show,” “Jaws of the Jungle,” “Sci-fi Late Night Creature Feature Show,” or “Spies, Thighs & Private Eyes.” Many of these are currently available as downloads from the SWV site (until the end of 2024)!

Rafael Baledon also made La Maldicion de La Llorona, yet today I want to discuss this werewolf film, which blows my mind.

Clarisa Fernandez is well-to-do, but is dealing with a curse, which is that she’s a werewolf. Luckily, or perhaps not so much for the humans they encounter, her doctor is a werewolf as well. They fall in love, which seems to be pretty much a happy ending, but not for anyone that knows them.

Kitty de Hoyos, who is also in Adventure at the Center of the Earth, plays the heroine of this film. Her doctor lycan love interest is Joaquin Cordero, who was Orlak in Orlak, El Infierno de Frankenstein and also appeared in both Dr. Satan films, as well as the astounding Vacaciones de Terror 2.

This is a movie that starts with no dialogue for ten minutes and ends with a werewolf hunting dog saving the say. Honestly, that sounds like the best review I can give this movie, which I adore.

You can watch this on YouTube.